polka dots&patterns

same shirt, different outfit! i found this shirt at a thrift store and it's my favorite. i can wear it so many different ways. i've had those shoes for... over five years now! i wear them alll the time, have gotten many more pairs of black heels, but they are still my favorites and i can't let them go even though they are all scuffed up and the color is coming off of them!

and a special thanks to the man behind the camera... who isn't looking too shabby himself ;)

note to self: do not forget when...

was in our room packing and dan was unloading the dishwasher. he kept coming in to talk to me and i kept half-way teasing him sassily about "getting to work!!"

a few minutes later he said, "jeez, it's never taken me so long to empty the dishwasher. i just want to be with you!"

my heart melted. i never want to forget these moments that remind me how happy and lucky i am!

belt matches hair

spring is so close. we had a sneak peak teaser for a while, but now it's raining and thundering again! so i get to wear my sweaters and blazers for a little while longer. i love this outfit. the shirt is {my favorite} from a thrift store in bessemer, AL along with the blazer (schwing!!) belt- thrifted in high school. legging- clearance at target. shoes- ross/marshalls (i forget) in roseville, CA. i love mixing neutrals. grey, white, and cream-ish.

thank you danny for photoshooting with meee!

self-diagnosis

the other night at work i was looking up a pill that is used to increase wakefulness, sometimes given to those with sleep work shift disorder. what?! there is an actually name for this?! i just knew i had it.

i looked it up...

"SWSD is a sleep disorder that affects people who frequently rotate shifts or work at night. Schedules of these people go against the body’s natural Circadian rhythm, and individuals have difficulty adjusting to the different sleep and wake schedule. SWSD consists of a constant or recurrent pattern of sleep interruption that results in insomnia or excessive sleepiness. This disorder is common in people who work non-traditional hours, usually between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m."

ME!!! i've got a bad case of it. and now i feel like i can blame everything on my SWSD.

like the other day when i was trying to turn up the volume on the tv and it would not turn up. what is going on?! "it's broken!! the tv won't turn up!!!! UGH!!!" (i can see now that i was overreacting) dan comes over.. "seeee dannn... it's not workiiingguh."

"the remote is turned backwards..."

i was pointing the remote towards me instead of the tv.

ohhhh boy.

can i blame that on sleep work shift disorder?

... ... ...

what about the other day when i was driving home from my last night of work and i missed my exit and then ended up going towards fosters (the longest highway without any exits or turnarounds)... i go about five miles in the wrong direction and come to an exit so i get on it and turn around headed back towards tuscaloosa. i get back to a somewhat familiar-ish area and take the wrong exit (again) and before i know i'm two minutes away from walmart. so i ended up just going to walmart and grocery shopping so my whole fiasco wouldn't feel like such a waste.

can i blame that on sleep work shift disorder?

"you're so lucky that i'm around..."

so the other night i had a bad night at work. like, so upset. so distraught. so hostile. so beaten. i came home and was the most uptight, worked up, pitiful thing i'd ever seen.

sundays are already hard. i get home at 7:40, hurry and get ready and have to leave and eat breakfast (i have to eat breakfast) by 7:50 (that's less than ten minutes to get out of my nasty scrubs and sagging face and try to get ready for church!). dan has meetings at eight that he must attend, so then i get to church (we share a car) and get to sit in the drafty foyer for an hour and welcome people and let the missionaries entertain me.

so last sunday i got home and hurried and got ready, snickers bar in hand for breakfast. and only had five minutes this time. i was teaching young womens during the first hour to top it all off. after my horrible, horrible night i didn't know if i would be able to teach with the Spirit. i was.. i hate to say this but i was filled with the horribly hateful feelings. i didn't know how i was supposed to go to church and teach my sweet young women. we got in the car, already running late, and as we started to drive away i put my head down on my knees and just started crying. it hit me. dan tried to comfort me but i was unconsolable. dan turned the car around and pulled back into the parking spot. he looked at my puffy red eyes with tears running down, pouty lips, and disgruntled hair and said "i'm going to skip my meetings. you are the most important thing to me." and that he couldn't just leave me that way. so we came back upstairs and he made me a smoothie and said a prayer for me and we talked about happy things and watched lds.org videos until i felt better. (click for the particular one i love)

and i did feel better! thanks to my sweet husband. thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ helping me let go of ill feelings (for a time, at least) and have the Spirit with me to teach.

[he's kind of like my knight in shining armor who rescued me from misery. oh, and in case you don't believe me... this picture is from the other day when he opened the door for me. he's too precious.]

catharsis

what i ________ about my job

emptying poop out of a plastic bag connected to somebody's stomach

pulling tubes out of and cleaning the body of a recently deceased woman with a highly contagious disease (so thankful she's in a better place)

assisting a woman of 370 pounds back into her bed and not being able to tell what part of her body is where ("you can sit down now" ... "i am...." ... "ohh...")

seeing multiple dimply, saggy bums through the open back of a hospital gown nightly

asking perfect strangers about their bowel habits, in detail

more experienced nurses treated me like nothing more than an incompetent little hassle to them and their ever so superior life (did you forget we have the same job and same position, and i would never want this job to be the culmination of my career?)

being nervous to call a doctor and tell him something to which he will probably say "uhmm.. okay... (youwokemeupforthat?)"

walking down the hall to leave the hospital and literally feeling like i've just been beat up, several times

just as i'm done helping my patient with whatever, i take my gloves off, thoroughly wash my hands... and as i'm half-way out the door they say "can you fix my sock?"

patients who say "open the blinds. empty my urinal. give me my medicine and then you can go." really?

trying so hard to do everything right that i know how and be a good nurse and it never being enough

it almost all makes it worth it when my favortie 80 something year old patient with the worst and cutest dementia has a harpers bazaar magazine in his room and when i first visit him he says "well, you better just pull up a chair and spend the night!"

fantasy fort

valentine's day itself was busy with work and school... so when i woke up from my long day's rest.... i woke up to this!!

ssssiiggghhhh..... i'm so in love with him and thankful for his simple, real love for me.

we decided to celebrate on the weekend so we could truly enjoy it and not have anywhere we needed to be but with each other! so friday was the day. dan has a lab until 5:50 PM... that's kind of stinky for a friday. but it has it's perks. such aaaas.... i can SURPRISE him when he gets home!!! so i built a FORT in the living room, with nothing but my own brain power and big muscles. it was about the most engineering my mind could muster... but it was

a w e

s o m e

...

i was so busy building a fort and making homemade banana cream pie i had no time to make dinner, so i got all dressed up and picked dan up from class and we went to nick's in the stick's. it's kind of famous around here. back when tuscaloosa was one of the last "dry counties" nick's in the stick's was right on the county line so everybody would go there to get their dranks. it was just good ole southern back country. we got baked potatoes, onion rings, filet mignon, salad... it was just so fun. our waiter was hILARIOus. we loved him.

so we came home and i made dan wait outside, so i came inside and turned on the music, lit the candles, and welcomed dan to the RA SPA. he was so surprised and in awe of all i had done! i even moved the mattress into the fort, it was the most plush, comfortable, and magical little place. so then dan got a massage and foot scrub from the RA SPA. he seemed pretty happy about it. we then watched the notebook (aww) and had some homemade banana cream pie (even home made the pie crust thanks to you mama!)

we slept out in our fort and it was the greatest, we never wanted to take it down. we woke up on saturday at six am and went fishing with our one of our good friends josh mays in our stolen boat from 1960. the weather was beautiful and we just loved being outside! (especially me since i had been so cooped up in my BED and WORK only for 8 days! i never see the sun.) we had a lovely weekend. we had to take down the fort since the our friends josh, kimberly, and jonah were coming over for dinner (we didn't have to because i'm sure they would have loved it, but it was a little much). so we took one last [divine] nap and dan said we could make another one for our anniversary. YAY!!! but i don't know if i can wait that long.

i'm so thankful for such an unbelievably wonderful valentine's day full of so much love! thank you dan for loving me and i look forward to many more valentine's days together!! your love is all i need.